Pointless Drivel

There had been a number of teams chasing our star midfielder, Alceu. Most of last season he was a wanted man, but I’d almost written off any real bids ever materialising. A £900,000 offer from Coritiba seemingly came out of nowhere.

We signed Alceu for free in 2009 and he was a first team regular and our first choice free kick taker — far too important to let go for cash we didn’t have a pressing need for. Thus, Coritiba’s offer was immediately turned down — even though it matched his valuation.

Undettered, Coritiba immediately came back with an offer of £975,000. At this point I wondered whether this offer might be too good to turn down; I had the very capable Paraná playing his heart out in my reserves and 15 year old prodigy Givaldo in my youth team. I decided to negotiate, asking a rather cheeky £1.4M. That kind of transfer fee could be used for real investment in the club.

Our match with Cidade Azul provided a brief distraction from the transfer saga. As if knowing this could be his last match for the Tigre, Alceu scored in the second minute, with Mateus finishing them off with another goal before half time. Alceu grabbed the plaudits of the press, Cidade’s manager, and man of the match.

The next morning, I was absolutely stunned to see  that Coritiba had come back to me and agreed to my £1.4m valuation, and I duly accepted.

There were no complaints from fans or players at Alceu’s departure, however the board were delighted with the cash injection. I plan on hiring a few more scouts, a new defensive coach, and pestering the board to upgrade our training facilities a the the end of the season.

So farewell Alceu, though your stay with the Tigre was short you served us well.

Alceu’s Criciúma stats

• 2010: Played 17, scored 4, assists 2, man of the match 2, average rating 7.28
• 2009: Played 53, scored 12, assists 8, man of the match 7, average rating 7.07

Yesterday, Tim Vickery claimed on his blog that the early-season regional leagues in Brazil — the 27 State Championships — are “past their sell-by date”. (Basically, these Championships occur right at the start of the Brazilian football season and see teams from the same States competing against each other in a mini league. Imagine if — before the Premiership kicked off — Arsenal, Chelsea, and other top London teams, played in a local league with the Charltons, Millwalls, and Lutons of the English leagues.)

To a degree, I think Vickery is right. The disparity between the Campeonato Paulista and, say, the Campeonato Carioca, is a large one. On the one hand there’s some pretty serious teams from São Paulo (Corinthians, Santos, Palmeiras, and São Paulo themselves), whereas Rio’s top teams face comparatively weaker opposition. Vickery’s theory is that the São Paulo teams are going to be closer to their “fighting weight” by the time the Brasileirão rolls around. 

This may be so, but I wonder if he’s missing a very important point here. Brazil is massive country and not a rich one. Traveling across the country to follow your team must surely be seen as the preserve of the well off. Heck, I can’t afford to get up to Coventry very often! I can’t imagine what it would be like for a fan of Recife team Sport having to travel down the coast to Porto Alegre to play Grêmio. That’s a journey of over 2,300; or two solid days driving.

It’s always struck me that the football in Brazil is very much still of and for the proletariat; unlike our Premiership, it’s still more of a working man’s game. Being able to see the top local teams playing in your town just seems like a good thing to me; kind of like the league system of college football in America. Who can afford to travel — week in and week out — across such huge distances for games that are anything less than a final or a semi final? Not people with regular jobs and probably not a lot of regular football fans in Brazil.

Life has been pretty good so far at Criciúma and I am loving the football in Brazil.

Copa do Brasil update

In March we travelled up the coast to Rio for our Copa do Brasil match against Flamengo. As I previously mentioned, we were a goal down from our home leg and we fully expected to take drubbing at the Maracanã.

The Mengão lined up with a diamond-shaped 4-1-2-1-2, which wasn’t exactly a genius move by their coach Cuca. Against our wider and more flexible 4-2-2-2, it gave our fullbacks — Patric and Wellington — lots of space down the wings to deliver crosses. However, despite plenty of early possession, we conceded a goal when Ronaldo Angelim headed in from a corner. Sadly, it then got much worse when our in-form striker, Michel, got injured. An injury that would rule him out for the season and see his loan cancelled.

In Michel’s place I brought on unproven youngster Jean Mossoró and it was looking like a case of damage limitation for the Tigre. (Mossoró, by the way, looks to be one for the future; check our this goal on YouTube.)

No doubt thinking victory was in the bag, Cuca persisted with his 4-1-2-1-2 — but our fullbacks continued to create chances. Finally, on 54 minutes, our target man Zulu headed in a Patric cross. Our consolation goal only lasted four minutes, though; Flamengo striker Obina then dribbled around Anderson Kanu and blasted it into the roof of the net to make it 3-1 on aggregate.

At this point, I adjusted our tactic from evenly balancing the distribution of our passing to focusing it entirely down the wings. Nothing to lose, I thought.

Things then started to get weird at the Maracanã.

On 73 minutes, Luis André got on the end of another Patric cross to make it 3-2 and the Mengão seemed to fall apart all over the field, having no response to our wing play. For the last 17 minutes they barely managed to get the ball into our half, until, with 8 minutes left, yet another cross from Patric flew into their box and Jean Mossoró headed home to send us through on away goals.

Epic stuff, and I rubbed Cuca’s nose in it to the press afterwards. A few of my players were unhappy at my claims that he was “tactically outclassed”; but bollocks to that, he was!

In the next round we faced state rivals Figueirense. This was a real horror show and — with Alceu, Patric, and Zulu all unavailable — we were comprehensively beaten in both legs. A freak 35 yard goal from Wellington the only consolation in a 4-1 aggregate defeat.

State Championship update

The Santa Catarina State Championship is over and it was a breeze for us. We won all of our matches, aside from one draw away at  Avaí and a loss to Figueirense. The final standings were:

The Brazilian third division proper starts next week, so we’ll see how we fair against teams we are more evenly matched against.

My first season with Brazilian third division outfit Criciúma is off to an impressive start (click here if you missed the first installment). In the Santa Catarina State Championship we have played nine and won nine, with only our neighbours Avaí looking anywhere near our pace. Life is good for the Tigre fans and their new English manager, even though I only know two words of Portugese so far (nenhum comentário, in case you wondered).

On top of the nine straight league wins, we’ve only conceeded two goals. One of these goals was particularly annoying, though. It came against a ten man Figueirense (great website, available in English) who were already comprehensively beaten. The goal was a comical defensive cock up between our keeper Zé Carlos and new star signing Alceu. Admittedly, I was playing Alceu as a centre back due to an injury to Felipe Figueiró, but it was woeful stuff. Both Zé Carlos and Alceu got an ear-full after the match, but I was more pissed off about losing Felipe Figueiró to injury. It leaves us with just two first team centre backs.

In other news, I think there’s unlikely to be a repeat of Big Phill’s famous victory with Criciúma in the Copa do Brasil. We drew the mighty Flamengo in the first round. Ugh. Next week we take a one goal deficit to the Maracanã and I’m not hopeful of turning things around. Even if Felipe Figueiró comes through a reserve game in one piece, we’re hopelessly outclassed against the Mengão.

I’m loving managing Criciúma so far and have been doing a little background research on them. Although their website is all in Portugese, I’ve discovered they have a rather good club song — Anthem of Criciúma. You can download an MP3 of it from here. Sing-a-long-tastic, although maybe not as catchy as the Sky Blues Song of my own Coventry City. Here, courtesy of Google, is a translation of the lyrics:

Remembering the heroes of the past
They wrote their names in history
Oh! Tricolor preordained
A present and future glories of

Save the Criciúma
In the National Sports
Save the Criciúma
Equity immortal
At the time of decision
A voice shouted happy
My povão

Criciúma, Criciúma
Our Club of love
Soul, heart and claw.

Will vibrate with
Your flag unfurled
Where is the most dear
The champions – our champion

Great stuff, although I’m curious about the world “povão” which Google failed to translate.

In my latest game of Football Manager 2009, I have started out in the Brazilian third division managing Criciúma E.C. — a team from the southern state of Santa Catarina.

Criciúma, Santa Catarina, Brazil

I didn’t know anything about Criciúma until yesterday; I picked them as they were one of the more promising teams in the third division, with a decent squad and above average training facilities. Essentially, given the lack of money in the lower divisions of Brazilian football, Criciúma have a youth academy. The club actually have some rather prestigious history too, having beaten Grêmio in the 1991 Copa do Brasil final. At the time they were coached by the then largely unknown Luiz Felipe Scolari.

As well as having the Brazilian leagues active, I also have England, Spain, and Italy available. My plan — should I not get bored of the game — is to make my name in South America, build up a knowledge of the leagues and players, and then move to Europe to try to build a team in the Brazilian mould. Even if I don’t manage this, I hope to learn more about Brazilian football.

Getting Started

My first order of business when taking charge of a new club in Football Manager is to focus on the coaching staff, in particular the fitness coaches. I’ve been burned by scrimping on this area before, with players never able to reach peak condition for match days. After firing a number — okay, most — of my coaching staff, the Criciúma board would only allow me six coaches in total (despite having had many more than this). This was kind of annoying, but having made them payout a £100,000+ in contract terminations, I wasn’t going to kick up too much of a stink.

After hiring a number of new coaches, my training ratings slightly improved. With one or two more coaches, allowing staff to concentrate on their areas of expertise, things should be much better.

The Players

Next up, Criciúma’s weak midfield desperately needed some new faces. With just three centre backs in the first team, I was after some defensive cover too. The board made no cash available for transfers, so it was time to hunt for players without clubs.

One of the players that I signed on a free was Alceu; a twenty-four year old defensive midfielder who started out at Palmeiras, where he won six youth caps for Brazil. I’m not sure what happened with Alceu’s career, but, after five seasons with the Verdão, he moved to Japan where he played for Kashiwa Reysol and Consadole Sapporo. Quite a step down, even if Palmeiras were not hugely successful during his tenure (2002-2007).

After two seasons in Japan, Alceu returned to Brazil for spells with Clube Náutico Capibaribe and São Carlos. Strangely, as of 2009, Wikipedia has him back at Kashiwa — had they loaned him out? Whatever Alceu’s history, my assistant manager rated him as an excellent signing and the Tigre fans were ecstatic when I got him. I’m hopeful he can prove himself at the Estádio Heriberto Hülse, in particular if he can take free kicks like this one he scored against Paraná.

In addition to Alceu, I signed two other midfielders on a free: Fausto (29), an influential defensive midfielder; and Fábio Baiano (33), a journeyman central midfielder with good creative and attacking qualities who has won bags of trophies with Flamengo and Grêmio.

Next was the small matter of attending a Trial Day arranged by the Brazilian Players’ Association. Here forty-six players without clubs form two teams and play a match in front of managers and scouts. From this rabble I spotted two centre backs who I am now actively pursuing: Leandro Falcão (19) and man-of-the-match Jaílson (22). Jaílson in particular looks a good prospect, having spent time with big boys like Atlético Mineiro and Bahia and never quite making their first teams. If I manage to lower my wage bill, I’ll definitely try to sign him.

The Tactic

I knew before I started the game that I didn’t want Criciúma to play in an English style, even though a direct 4-4-2 probably would have been quite effective in the lower Brazilian leagues. Instead, I wanted to play a typical Brazilian 4-2-2-2: balanced attacking/defending, a slow build up, and a short passing game that keeps the ball on the deck. Criciúma’s lack of traditional wide players made the decision to go with 4-2-2-2 a simple one.

I’m now tweaking this tactic for my squad ready for our first game, a Santa Catarina State Championship group stage match against Concórdia for which we’re massive 1-33 favourites. I’ll let you know how it goes.